Pulling down your sleeves
To hide the track marks
Which look more like
A rollercoaster of lines
A wobbling tattoo up your arms

This isn’t a feeling
Attempt,
Or moment.
This is trying to break that cycle
Hurt we all hide.

Shelter those racing thoughts.
Whom meet no one at the finish lane.
Just as insomnia meets QVC
We want to buy happiness for 9.99..
But we can’t afford the shipping and handling.

We no longer know how to breathe
Without choking on irony.

Your hands shake in the cold.
Waiting for the next move..
Wondering if it will be for the better.

I reach for solitude
The way a rock tries to not
Hit the bottom of a lake.

You can’t hear it,
The sound is demolished by
Cracks
Holes
Losing the lining.

It was like everything had stopped.
A dream within a dream.

Broken
Tossed along the shoreline
Awaiting the breath of life.

I can no longer hold my heart.

It’s quarantined,
Isolated,
Deprived.
Sinking within a dull melody
Bouncing further down
The rabbit hole.

How can you breathe?
How can you believe?
How can you live…

Heartless?

I’m the magician’s assistant

Behind the curtain
Moving strings
Attached to papers.

I can make it rain

I can make it snow

But it’s only an illusion.

Just as a fountain of memories
Each trickle bursts
Like flames inside my eyes.

It’s like a million questions
Yet to be answered.
Whispers of melancholy
Pulled from a black hat
Covered in a handkerchief
Blown,
With a mighty wind.

Rushing,
I run towards the leader.
Waving his wand like a
Windshield wiper.
A hypnotic metronome
Before my eyes.

I am powerless

I move the curtain
Switch the boxes….

Suddenly
he stops moving.

I am lost
Without control.

Drag your memories underground
So you can’t see them again.
Pretend they are buried
Like your cat
From when you were 8.

They are decomposing
Fractions of silent grain
Waving in the wind
On a cold summer day.

These shifting layers
Each creates bedrock.
Your feet shake
Between the colliding moments in time.

Compressed weakness
Controlled desire
Complete lack of emotion.

You no longer remember
What’s invisible

A new brain

Grieving for a death that never happened,
Wishing for a place I have never seen,
and longing for a beauty
thats always been in disguise.

You've dealt me a hand of empty cards.
the rules are now unclear
so I fold
underneath the uncertainty.

Compressed air
drains through my knee caps.
Whispers from an explosion
stamped with fear.

I'm searching for my finger print
across the shadows.
A delicate balance
playing hide
in
go
seek
with my senses.

I have never yearned more
for this completeness.

Please show me the way.

I try to remember before this.
Like when riding bicycles
& playing in sandboxes
Were commonplace.

When you took photos
Because it was fun
shaking plastic.
Not showing off
The free time
That has already been taken away.

I try to remember the plastic jewelry
Tightly bound paper
Melted clay
Pinched together sooo tightly
On a piece of string.
its taken away the patience
& creativity
Replaced by instant gratification.

I try to remember that smell:
Fresh
Sticky
Wholesome
Oven cooked
Hard work.
But now-
It comes right to your door.

I try to remember how the paper felt
When flipping through poetry books
Laughing
Crying
Remembering the voices
That carried the words like songs.

But I’m staring at a screen
Not a human.

Technology will never replace
What I’m trying to remember.

The world is full of options
Like a drive-thru menu
You have to make them quick
Or else the opportunity
And yourself
Disappear

I remember waiting
Hours on end
Planning
Scheming
Developing
These options.

So much more painful to think about-
Then to choose.

Like a sunny day
When you are stuck inside
Or driving in the rain
When all you want to do is run and hide.

I wish I knew the easy way
To decide.
Instead of always having options,
lingering within my mind

Paradox
Adventure into the great unknown.
I can’t read her poker face
Because I can barely read my own-
Instructions,
To turn my brain waves
Into sunshine

Lying
Sink inside
kcab
words.
Drawing lines in the sand
Quickly, she says
We have no time to decide

Gracious
She whispers.
But I do not understand
the music
from her heartbeat.

illuminated
the door becomes a window.
It’s still unclear
She sighs,
Closing her eyes.
Flooding my senses
Like watching the rain fall
As she walks away